


mortem

by badfaithed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 02:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12159429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badfaithed/pseuds/badfaithed
Summary: he might not have loved astoria greengrass, but she had been his closest friend.[ written for a friend / altered timeline ]





	mortem

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for an irl friend! the timeline has been changed a bit so certain events happened at different times.

he watches as the coffin is lowered into the grave by a black cloaked wizard whose face was a perfect representation of sorrow. he feels his heart tighten in his chest and he presses his palms against his sides to get a hold of himself. it hurts to watch the box descending into the ground, one that held the woman that he married. behind him he knows young scorpius is standing solemnly as he'd told him to, still mildly confused about what was actually happening.

 

he might not have loved astoria greengrass, but she had been his closest friend.

 

he suddenly feels a tiny hand slip into his, and his grey eyes flash to his son, who is looking at him with more concern and worry than should ever be prevalent in a five year old. he opens his mouth to speak, but his lips freeze and the words are lost halfway up his throat. he hadn't even realized his hand had been trembling. instead, he squeezes the small hand and looks up again, painting his expression clean, a blank slate once again. he knows his mother is watching him out of his peripheral vision, her eyes flickering with sadness as they had been turning after the war.

 

biting his lip hard, draco raises his other hand to run it through his hair, ruffling through it. almost as if it was a response, a faint current breezes through the air, tickling his cheek gently. he shakes himself internally and focuses on what was happening in front of him instead. when the wizard officiating the funeral straightens up, he feels a wave of finality - like this was inevitable, and he hates thinking like that. swallowing dryly, he watches the man's mouth move as he speaks those grave words, and he thinks about how strange it is that the last person to see astoria would be a stranger. suffocating the sudden urge to strangle the man, he instead curls his toes in.

 

he thinks about what astoria would want him to do, and immediately an image of her jumps in front of his face, with her shy but still shining eyes, the small smile as if she had a private joke, her posture confident but still dignified. ah, he thinks absently as his heart aches, this is astoria when he'd first met her. he remembered faintly that he'd thought her an empty girl at the time, but afterward he was proved wrong time and time again. he blinks, and the image shutters, and instead he's looking at an astoria from around a year from that day - he can tell it in the way her skin is touched by days of sunlight, and how her figure had filled out instead of being awkwardly angular. he drops his gaze towards the ground, and there springs the astoria that he didn't want to see. a face pale with pallor, eyes dimming and hands weak. a curse that had wrought itself around her in the form of impending death. and still in his mind's eye he sees that she's speaking determinedly. he almost smiles wryly at the sight, but when he blinks the reel of memories end, and he's looking at the freshly dug grave again. 

 

he feels his son tug at his arm, and he looks down at him before raising a shaking hand to touch his face. as he draws away, he realizes that his fingers were wet.

 

for the first time since astoria's passing, draco cries.


End file.
